Ice Princess
by Culumacilinte
Summary: A GrimaEowyn unrequited fic. Grima longs for Eowyn, his Ice Princess


Ice Princess

Characters: Gríma, Éowyn

Rating: PG-13-ish, actually probably not really, but I really don't care

Summary: Gríma longs for Éowyn, his ice princess.

Gríma the Wormtongue prowled the halls of Meduseld; his footfalls light, almost noiseless, his black cloak blending with the shadows and darkness. If one was not to look carefully, he might never be noticed. It was an art he had perfected after long years of bitter nightwatch. His eyes, as blue and cold as ice, flitted this way and that, nervously taking in every detail of the carven walls and worn floors. He hardly needed to look anymore. He knew the hall as well as he knew the back of his hand. This hall, which housed the bedchambers of the royal family. There was Théoden's room, there Éomer's, there the empty chamber that had once belonged to Éomund and Théodwyn, and then, last, the door shut tight, was the room that belonged to Éowyn. The door, like all the others, had the sunburst motif carved upon it, signifying its inhabitant's royal status.

Gríma sighed, why did he bother? The doors were the same, night after night, never changing- the same dark wood and brightly painted carvings made dull by the moonlight seeping through the windows. But still, no matter how he told himself it was useless, he was driven from his bed by a compulsion that could not be denied. There was a chance that one night, the door would be open, and when that night came, he would enter, and seat himself on the chair next to her sleeping-pallet, and gaze upon her- his Éowyn, his ice princess. That was what he called her in his mind. At night, he imagined, the epithet would be even more fitting.

Bright moonlight would spill upon her sleeping form, turning the spun-gold locks of her hair into shining silver, her pale face to purest white. The shadow of her delicate lashes would be cast upon her shapely cheeks- dark, spiky shadows against the defined cheekbones. Maybe she would shift in the grips of some dream, and her lips, turned blue by starlight and moonlight, would be parted slightly, as if beckoning him. Beneath the folds of her clean white shift (in his mind, she was always dressed in white), he would clearly be able to see the shape of her breasts, small and tomboyish, a remnant of her youth, when she was cheeky and mischievous, always running about, defying her nurses.

Then he had called her, much to her chagrin, "Daisy", or "Little Sun-lass". But that had been before he had fallen into shadow and, it seemed, dragged her along with him. Now she was like a lily, or one of the simbelmynë that grew on the barrow-mounds outside Edoras, frozen in its prime. Still pristine white, still beautiful, but cold and dead. If indeed she was a flower, he thought, you might cut yourself on its petals.

His ice princess, slender and deadly as a tempered steel blade. For she was deadly, he had seen her practicing in the stables when she thought no one else was there. He had seen the way her slender white hands gripped the hilt of her sword with the strength of a vise, the way the bright steel flashed like molten gold and silver in the sunlight, how she wove a dance of death in the still, hay-smelling air.

He had stood, entranced, at the stable door until she turned and saw him. He remembered all too well the look of loathing that had filled her iron-grey eyes as she beheld him. "Worm!" she had spat at him, "What business have you, watching me? Speak!" He had tried to pacify her with praise and silky words, but she had simply sheathed her sword and stalked past, nose haughtily in the air, limbs tight with anger and shame.

Why did she hate him so? No, that was not it. Gríma knew why she hated him, the miserable lackey of the White Wizard that controlled her uncle, that had set her land under the shadow of Isengard. He did not blame her. He blamed himself. Had he not been so weak, to think that even if Saruman conquered, Éowyn would submit. She would never, not to him. And he loved her for it.

He allowed his mind to wander, picturing Éowyn galloping across the starlit plains of Rohan on her horse, Windfola, her silvered hair streaming out behind her like waves on the ocean he had never seen, her dress as white as snow, gleaming in the light of the moon.

His dream Éowyn never spoke to him. She stood, silent, in his arms, looking at him with eyes filled with understanding and love. And though he might despair that she would never love him, for all he understood her and loved her as he was sure no one else could, he could, and would, wait. And he knew that no matter what she said to him during the day, at night he could always return to the frigid embrace of his goddess, his Éowyn, his ice princess.


End file.
